The Olympic Experience…

If you have no interest in sport, the Olympics or British success, look away now…

Anyone still there? Okay, you’re now going to get the full and unadulterated Olympic experience, courtesy of the crew at Dorney Lake.

When the tickets were first made available through the lottery I have to admit that I wasn’t that fussed about going, since I could theoretically have actually been involved in the event behind the scenes (in a past life I was a major regatta organiser and national rowing umpire) but I knew when I retired from that 2 years ago that I had given up my chance of involvement in the Olympics. Right enough, I never actually got to watch a race in my entire organisational career unless I was umpiring it, so perhaps that wasn’t a bad move lol Anyway, dad applied for tickets and didn’t get any, (he was ignoring my apathy ;o) ) but he persevered and when they went on sale he got tickets to Friday’s finals.

Now I have to say that the organisation of this event was SUPERB, and an extremely slick process. We were scheduled to park between 7:00 and 7:30 am at Braywick Park in Maidenhead. We arrived at 7:05, walked round to the bus park on nice plastic paving stuff to stop us having to squelch through the grass, and by 7:20 we were pulling out of the park and on our way, having walked straight onto a bus. It became obvious that the 2 couples in front of us on the bus don’t use public transport often, as I overheard the following conversation as we arrived at the event:

Women #1: ‘Look at all those buses, they’re all new you know’ (they weren’t, some of them had Reading Buses livery and a couple of other random ones, but there were a good few new ones)
Woman #2: ‘I wonder what they’ll do with them all afterwards’
Man #2: ‘Maybe they’ll send them all to China or somewhere in the third world’ (or maybe they’ll just distribute them amongst their First bus fleets around the country)
Woman #1: ‘And it must have been someone’s job just to work out all these bus schedules too’ (seriously, ya think?!)

Aaaanyway, it was then a good 1km walk round to the course – the bus park seemed to be in the carpark for Windsor Race Course, and the plastic pavement walked us round past the race track to security. Well done to the British army and the army of volunteers that processed everyone through that about 20 times faster than the airport security guys (maybe they could give lessons…) Once through that we had the entertainment guys out singing, cheering, greeting and chatting to us (well done all for pasting on such happy faces that early in the morning!) Having grabbed a drink and a programme, we headed round to our seats in Grandstand 1. If you watched any of the rowing on the TV, that was the stand nearest the finish line, we were about 100m from the finish, right opposite the medal pontoons and the family/coach stands. Here’s the view from our seats:

Looking down at the finish line

The finish tower

Looking up the course at some crews out practising

Looking to the boathouses

Looking right across to the medal pontoons and family/coach grandstand

Looking up from the front of our grandstand – we were near the top

We got to see some soon to be celebs out for a practice row:

GB Men’s double scull, eventual silver medallists

GB Women’s lightweight double scull, eventual gold medallists

GB Men’s single scull, eventual bronze medallist

GB Men’s coxless four, eventual gold medallists

And then the racing started. Now what you don’t see on the TV is that everyone that has entered gets a final. In the case of the men’s single scull, there were actually 6 finals! The ‘non A’ finals are run first, and this guy is officially the slowest Olympic sculler ever – bless him! He’s only been sculling for a few months, but they are trying to encourage participation from more countries, hence the ‘F’ final consisted of competitors from Tunisia, Cameroon and Niger:

The slowest sculler, from Niger, who got a huge cheer from the crowd!

We got a bit of a break before the real finals, as there was some cross wind and they redrew for the lanes, but we had everything from Mexican waves to grandstand cheering competitions to keep us occupied, not to mention trying to get our tweets up on the big screen! Finally, it was time for the big boys and girls to come out to play:

GB Men’s quadruple sculls, where alas we missed out on a medal

The winning German men standing up, with the Croatians who came 2nd

The GB Men’s pair at the start of the race

And rowing past to a bronze medal

GB’s Anna Watkins and Kath Grainger sculling past with a commanding lead about to win gold

The GB girls celebrating, while the Aussies on the far side are devastated, and the Poles, nearest, are a bit stunned at getting 3rd!

The TV camera close up on the big screen of the girls’ celebrations

Men’s pair medal ceremony

GB Men’s single scull on the start – his cousin was sitting right in front of us, so no pics of the race without flags in!

Women’s double sculls medal ceremony

Alan Campbell gets his bronze in the Men’s single sculls medal ceremony

Wonder what Alan was pointing out to his training partner, gold medallist Mahe Drysdale

The girls come past to thank everyone – they rowed slowly down the entire course to do this

Alan Campbell comes past to thank everyone too

All I can say is that the noise from the supporters was deafening each time GB came past, and I shouted myself breathless during the races! By the end of the entire regatta, we’d had our most successful Olympics ever, going from never having won a gold in the women’s races, to winning 3! GB had a total of 4 gold, 2 silver and 3 bronze, and made the finals in every event they entered. I’d say it inspired me to get in a boat again, but I think I prefer the breathlessness of cheering these days ;o)

We did see some funny outfits on the day, from the sequinned Union Jack dress above to loads of rowing kit (guilty as charged) to cream linen suits and white linen skirts (seriously, this is a UK outdoor event, you thought linen was the thing to wear? Where do you usually watch rowing, in the hospitality tents at Henley?!)

On our way out, we stopped for a few photo ops, and were sung on our way by one of the funniest volunteers, altogether now:

‘If you’re happy and you know it please don’t go
If you’re happy and you know it don’t leave me…’

The exit was as fast as the entrance was, and by 2pm we were back at the car and on our way home.

Well done to all the volunteers who gave up their days jobs to make the event such a huge success, and gave us all a spectacular day to remember.

We had tickets to the swimming at the Aquatics Centre on the Olympics Park on Saturday. It was fab – so beautifully organised. They coped with a quarter of a million visitors on the day and we didn't need to queue once. We didn't see any UK success, but did see 2 world records and Michael Phelps last Olympic race (and gold medal).

What a fantastic experience. Thank goodness your dad went ahead and found some tickets. We are huge sports fans and have been loving watching it all on TV but being there would be so special. We weren't lucky with tickets but did manage to get some for the paralympics so will be down to London at the end of the month. Can't wait.Thanks for sharing your day! Brilliant. Juliex

Thank you for sharing this! What a wonderful day. We have been lucky enough to go to some events and I should write down this kind of thing before the memories leave my little brain (my short term memory has been decimated by small children!). Great pictures too x

Hi Katy, it's been long time since I've read your blog (I have one but don't visit others as often as I should!). It's come a long way and I see you've been very successful! I love the story and pics about the Olympics. Keep up the great work on the blog!

Fabulous post! I love reading about the Olympics from someone who doesn't have a press pass and is someone I actually like and respect (meaning – not some CBS figurehead, which is all we get here in the states!). Thanks for the inside view 🙂

I love it!!! What a brilliant day – so happy you got to be a part of it. Britain truly did a smashing job hosting the games. I loved seeing all the British patriotism and hearing them sing God Save the Queen when there was a gold medalist (I got teary during Andy Murray's.) Glad it was sung so often too! Three cheers for Team GB!

Hi, I'm Katy Cameron, head of the Thistle Patch here in Glasgow, UK where I design bag and sewing patterns. Welcome to the site.